Bedard: If passing offense starts slow, Bill Belichick should take heat, not Tom Brady
By
Greg A. Bedard
Posted on August 7, 2018
FOXBOROUGH — One of the bigger discussion topics during the Patriots’ offseason of discontent was the decision by
Tom Brady to emphasize the
voluntary in voluntary workouts by sitting out the team portion of offseason practices, only showing up for the mandatory minicamp.
That decision rightfully brought criticism on the league’s best quarterback. After years of being present for just about every offseason activity — and Brady touting how he’s given up his life to be the best while others don’t — he invited the criticism. In the process, he put himself in line for even more of it if the Patriots, who have only one core receiver (
Chris Hogan) returning this season, start slowly out of the gate on offense.
But then training camp started and, now, there are two things that we know.
The first is, there has been absolutely no public retribution — hidden or blatant — by Belichick against Brady (and fellow vacationer
Rob Gronkowski, for that matter) for skipping offseason workouts. There haven’t been any extra reps or anything else that would indicate Belichick had any problem whatsoever with the decision made by Brady and Gronkowski. If anything, they’ve been rewarded for it. Camp has basically been Club Med for the quarterback and tight end. They’ve had more veteran rest built into the first two weeks than
Chris Sale.
And that leads into the other thing we’ve learned so far in camp. Forget all the talk about Brady getting the blame should the Patriots start slowly on offense early in the season — including the first two weeks against the formidable defenses of the Texans and Jaguars. If anyone peddles that, they haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in Foxborough.
No, if the Patriots can’t move the ball out of the gate — and no one here is saying that
will happen, so don’t take this out of context — the blame should squarely be pointed at Belichick. Brady may have missed the offseason, but there has been plenty of time to make up for it. It has been Belichick’s decision not to do that.
We won’t get into rep numbers because this camp — even more so than
last year’s slow simmer — has severely dialed back the competitive periods. In terms of judging a QB’s effectiveness when it comes to stats, I don’t count non-competitive periods or those involving cards (amounts to scout team). So my stats will be lower than those from other reporters. (I’m not saying I’m right and they’re wrong; it’s just the way I do things).
And we won’t get into how there have hardly been any reps at such camp staples as physical one-on-ones between receivers and cornerbacks, or full-go (to thudding, not tackling) 11-on-11 competitive periods — you could count the number of times a DB separated a WR from the ball on one hand. We’ll leave it open that, with no joint practices, the Patriots might be slowly building to that with, still, 34 days left before the opener.
Let’s just go with this: In nine days since July 29, Brady has had two moderate throwing days (Aug. 1 and 2). That’s it. July 30 was the stadium practice, which was a glorified walkthrough. July 31 was an off day before two days of practice. Then Brady was given veteran rest on Friday
and Saturday. The team had
two off days on Sunday and Monday, where there was no practice. And then Tuesday was another light day.
Say whatever you want about the offseason practices, but the much bigger deal (at least in terms of getting on the same page) is training camp. And, for whatever reason, Belichick hasn’t decided to do that yet.
The only legitimate excuse for why Brady has thrown just twice in over a week is if they are managing an injury with the 41-year-old. And that’s not totally out of the question.
There was a practice — and we think it was the stadium practice but aren’t sure because we didn’t think it was a big enough deal at the time to note it (
yes, I’ll run a penalty lap — everything’s a big deal when it comes to Brady, idiot) — Brady was shaking his throwing arm out after making a handful of throws. It’s quite possible that his dramatic decrease in workload was as a result of this.
If that’s why Brady hasn’t been throwing much of late, then that’s totally valid and Belichick is doing the smart thing.
But if Brady’s healthy and the Patriots go on to struggle with the timing of their passing offense when the season starts, don’t fall into the lazy trap of heaping the blame on Brady for missing the offseason. That may have happened, but it’s ancient history now that camp has started. Belichick’s been in charge of the schedule and reps this summer, so if things don’t look great in September don’t bring the pitchforks and torches to Brady’s doorstep. Take them to Belichick.
hope they can get this corrected. this was the big red flag along with the knees
